Project Q and "borrowed" assets

So I've been playing around with the Toolset lately, looking for nice tilesets and other assets to use while relearning what I used to know about how things work, and of course I took a look at Project Q and was pretty much blown away by how good so much of it looked. I immediately found myself sidetracked from what I had planned to do and started just messing around with things for the sake of it, but as I explored the content I started noticing things that were pretty obviously taken from other games.

For some examples, here we have the iron armour from Skyrim:

This goat looks an awful lot like WoW goats:

Here we have the bartendy elf dude from NwN2:

And a partial serving of the Ebon Hawk crew from KotOR 1 and 2:

And I'm sure there are other things as well that I don't recognise. These are the things I'm fairly certain are direct rips as they're just too alike the original content to be recreations. I also saw a bunch of LotR faces that could very well be made in their image rather than rips, for all I know, since I can't tell where they were from like I can with the above images, and some other stuff like that.

So yeah. Over the last couple of days it's been gnawing at me. I'm not too certain og how I feel about the pack now, if I won't be able to be sure that the assets I'm using hasn't been ripped from somewhere. So I'm asking to anyone who might have more experience with this stuff than I have, is there a lot of borrowed content in it?

I'm aware that I am probably able to simply not use anything I don't want to or otherwise cut it out of anything I make (although I am not quite experienced enough to do so yet - new content and haks and the like was never something I worked with back in the day). It's just the thought of using assets I don't want to because I don't recognise where they're from that bothers me.

But ... there is to say one thing, on the one hand this can make developers understand how the graphics of NWN can be improved, on the other be ... the total out of control of the use of material outside the license and the fact why mods such as Progect Q and CEP can not be integrated directly into NWN: EE.

But I say ... and if BG is going to do a selection job (ie takes the content that does not go to take material that does not go to inflate other licenses, such as the goats of "Wow: Mist of Pandaria" characters of Skyrim and NWN2 "and take only those contents that can be integrated as" Medieval City "or" Elven City ") and insert only certain contents already in NWN: EE? in this way they can lighten common pathc as Progect Q and CEP, but mine and a cry in vain and I do not think will be taken into consideration.

BUT as I said on the one hand, this should make you think how NWN can be improved graphically, and I really hope that BG will try to do something, on the skeletons and the various nodes that make up the np, creatures etc ... it would not be bad if they expand the nodes animations, to have more possibilities to animate and implement creatures and NPCs of various kinds, such as the knots on the hands do not exist in NWN, it would be nice if they could be added to have a more realistic realism, for example, it would be nice to even I'm going through the tol set to implement a function to import 3d models from other programs like Blender, Daxstudio etc ... to be able to then manipulate and integrate them in NWN, more or less something similar like in Second Life. This could also facilitate the import and creation of new content but mine is just an idea.

People who port stuff from one game to another are generally pretty transparent about where they took things from. Project Q being largely a compilation of many modders' work it can be tricky to trace it all back, but if you have a reason to care if some specific model is original work or not, I'm sure someone can tell you if you just ask.

At one point we had a lot of people submitting content for Project Q. Some of it was clearly identified as being from other games, other content was not - and often this fact wasn't pointed out to me until AFTER the content had already been included in the Q haks and released to the community. Thus, it became a matter of not wanting to remove "rips" unless the original developer of the content complained about it and told me to remove it. When I retired from Q, I had yet to hear such a complaint.

To the best of my knowledge, the content "rips" found in Q are confined to creatures and PC parts (specifically heads and some robes). If you are trying to avoid including any "rips" in your module, the items, placeables, sounds, and tilesets haks are a safe bet, and I can generally tell you who created a specific model (myself and Six are probably responsible for 60-70% of the content in those haks).

Maybe the best thing for the current Q-Team to do is to provide a source list with its documentation that credits the original game for content "rips." In this way, concerned authors such as yourself will know exactly which assets to avoid.

Thanks for the answers. It's good to know that the tilesets and placeables are safer to use than others. Tilesets was actually one of the main things I was worried about (not very strange considering how I apparently now have a new hobby of building random maps for no reason ), because it feels like faces and appearances would be a lot simpler to replace or exclude than tilesets.

Thanks for the offer of help as well, I'll get in touch if there's anything I wonder about. I'd also second the suggestion for the Q people to make such a list, but if they don't feel there's enough clamour for it to be worth the time I'd understand that too.

In some cases, the content from other games appears by permission, for non-commercial use in NWN.

For example, Bioware sanctioned the KOTOR heads.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that Obsidian were OK with the many NWN2 imports, too (Q is just the tip of that iceberg).

There are a few cases of questionable provenance, which could probably be handled case-by-case in the event of a takedown request.

However, where permission is granted, it doesn't allow commercial use. Likewise, fan-made content submitted since the new vault began is mostly restricted to use by open content projects. Two major reasons why Beamdog can't easily adopt community material.

I have no intention of removing anything. If the companies that own the copyright on the stuff was going to, they'd have objected by now. Nor has the current Q Team indicated anywhere that I'm aware of that they are considering removing stuff.

Well, I just uploaded a patch for it.; but as far as new stuff actually goes, I'm not certain. Meaglyn posted back in early-mid November 2017 that it was time to start looking at an update and mentioned something about changing the way the overriding content was implemented, but I haven't seen anything since.

That being said, as I go forward with my module I've been finding some minor issues that could use a tweak here and there. So...until someone tells me to stop, I'm going to work on getting these tweaks out to the Community - probably on a quarterly basis, unless its something totally borked.

In some cases, the content from other games appears by permission, for non-commercial use in NWN.

For example, Bioware sanctioned the KOTOR heads.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that Obsidian were OK with the many NWN2 imports, too (Q is just the tip of that iceberg).

There are a few cases of questionable provenance, which could probably be handled case-by-case in the event of a takedown request.

However, where permission is granted, it doesn't allow commercial use. Likewise, fan-made content submitted since the new vault began is mostly restricted to use by open content projects. Two major reasons why Beamdog can't easily adopt community material.

CD Projekt Red gave permission to use their assets as well. Obviously as long as it for non-profit.All these permissions immediately become a grey area if they are included in any official release by Beamdog or a premium module.

We have been operating along the lines of "This game is a free to play / long dead game for modders" over on the vault for years. You need to be very careful what assets you use if that premium module system ever takes off.

In some cases, the content from other games appears by permission, for non-commercial use in NWN.

For example, Bioware sanctioned the KOTOR heads.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that Obsidian were OK with the many NWN2 imports, too (Q is just the tip of that iceberg).

There are a few cases of questionable provenance, which could probably be handled case-by-case in the event of a takedown request.

However, where permission is granted, it doesn't allow commercial use. Likewise, fan-made content submitted since the new vault began is mostly restricted to use by open content projects. Two major reasons why Beamdog can't easily adopt community material.

CD Projekt Red gave permission to use their assets as well. Obviously as long as it for non-profit.All these permissions immediately become a grey area if they are included in any official release by Beamdog or a premium module.

We have been operating along the lines of "This game is a free to play / long dead game for modders" over on the vault for years. You need to be very careful what assets you use if that premium module system ever takes off.

I agree about actually "Putting" them in premium modules. On the other hand, building "premium" modules on Q and borrowed assets would be perfectly legit.

Not CEP nor Q own the rights to use assets made by others, unless such assets were released under public domain or similar. It is a tolerated practice because nobody is making direct profit on such unauthorized usage, but if BeamDog included them in a commercial module (which is the definition of Premium module, in this context) you can be sure they'd be facing legal issues.It doesn't apply just to assets pulled from other commercial games, but also to any asset (model or texture or whatever) that wasn't made by CEP and Q members, who still retain (individually) the Intellectual Property of whatever they made, unless otherwise explicitly stated.

If you make a model that ends up included in CEP, Q or any other compilation package, you could be allowing such distribution of your content, in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually sharing community, but that isn't enough for a company like Beamdog to safely include such content in a commercial project - they'd need explicit license to use them, regulated by a contract unless such usage is included in the license they're distributed under.

The permission I have gotten over the years to asset flip content - has been under the strict usage that it remains open source / not sold for any money.

You will definitely run in hot water using assets from CEP / Project Q in a premium module. Likely Beamdog will have any premium module creators sign a contract - stating you have the right to all assets used to cover their butts.

I would be very careful what you put into a premium module. Use stock NWN1 assets or properly license / create the content you want to add yourself.

TL;DR - Project Q / CEP / Many Vault Assets - Are NOT appropriate in a for-profit product. It's a database of lifted / modified assets where permission was granted on the stipulation it would never be used to generate profit.

EDIT:Until further notice - this includes NWN2 assets as well. I don't know the legal boundaries of what is owned by WoTC and what is owned by Obsidian. I have no doubt that everyone in that relationship is entitled to their slice of the pie.

Until someone from Beamdog says it's okay, I would be very careful about back ported content from Electron engine. (For anything you plan to sell for $$)

Not CEP nor Q own the rights to use assets made by others, unless such assets were released under public domain or similar. It is a tolerated practice because nobody is making direct profit on such unauthorized usage, but if BeamDog included them in a commercial module (which is the definition of Premium module, in this context) you can be sure they'd be facing legal issues.It doesn't apply just to assets pulled from other commercial games, but also to any asset (model or texture or whatever) that wasn't made by CEP and Q members, who still retain (individually) the Intellectual Property of whatever they made, unless otherwise explicitly stated.

If you make a model that ends up included in CEP, Q or any other compilation package, you could be allowing such distribution of your content, in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually sharing community, but that isn't enough for a company like Beamdog to safely include such content in a commercial project - they'd need explicit license to use them, regulated by a contract unless such usage is included in the license they're distributed under.